MARUTHI NARAYAN NAIK Vs. STATE OF KARNATAKA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioners are all teachers in Shivaji Secondary School located at Ulga, North Kanara District. Aggrieved by an order passed by the Government on 13.6.1980 bearing No. ED 86 MHS 79, Bangalore, providing for starting of twenty six new Secondary Schools in the State during the academic year 1980-81 petitioners have approached this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution for redress of their grievance.

(2.) Their grievance is that the Society running the Shivaji Secondary School itself had applied for starting another school since 1965-66 at the village Keravadi in Uttara Kannada District, and those requests had been turned down under the relevant provisions of the Karnataka Grant-in-Aid Code applicable to High Schools run and managed by private bodies on the ground that the area did not require a school and therefore, the impugned order sanctioning a High School at Keravadi was not only against the provisions of the Grant-in-Aid Code but also affected the petitioners' school in as much as the Government school may attract some of the students in the petitioners' school and thus cause the school to go out of existence though the school has built a reputation for good education in the region for a long time. It is further stated in the petition that on account of the Government school functioning at Keravadi it is possible that the staff in the Shivaji Secondary School would have to be retrenched in terms of the Grant-in-Aid Code applicable to them.

(3.) Whatever may be the truth or otherwise of the grievance made out by the petitioners, two things are well settled. First that the Grant-in Aid Code does not have the force of law being mere adminstrative, instructions from the Government to the officials of the Education Department governing the relationship between the Govt. and the private schools aided by the Government. It is fairly conceded by the learned Counsel appearing for the petitioners that the Grant-in-Aid Code does not have application to Government schools.